It’s hard to imagine buttoned up, pre-quake conservative Christchurch embracing epic street art murals, and yet here we are now five years later in the running for the title of ‘ The Southern Hemisphere’s street art capital’. Add the recent re-openings of local art palaces The Christchurch Art Gallery and CoCA alongside the hugely popular SPECTRUM Street Art Festival and the city’s flourishing suburban gallery and underground scenes, and Christchurch is booming as an art hub. Cityscape caught up with the people behind the city’s resurging art scene for the lowdown on Christchurch’s revamped art cred and what the future holds.
An event as big as the quakes couldn’t help but affect the city’s art scene just as much as it affected all other aspects of life in the city, notes Centre of Contemporary Art’s (CoCA) new director and principal curator Paula Orrell, reflecting that the ‘contemporary’ has been redefined....